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The Enchanted World Of Cathy Cullis

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Poetica Banner, Cathy Cullis

I had an interview with Cathy Cullis who is a visual artist working in London England who describes herself as a Artist, Poet and a Mother. I have been enjoying Cathy's work for years and have often gone to her blog and Flickr page to catch up on her new experiments. I always leave refreshed and inspired after spending time with her work. I especially appreciate the way she moves back and forth between different mediums to find new and playful ways of creating her very personal and enchanted world.

Here are the questions and answers we would like to share with you;

Cathy what was an the early experience from your youth that you can look back on and see you were already becoming an artist?

I was a complex little girl, with so many deep, dark, imaginative ideas that wanted to be words no, pictures yes, a song yes, no words. I loved the tactile possibilities of making things, whether it was inventing tiny gardens using sprigs of weeds and a foil carton, or drawing in chalk on the pavement, or making up a play with friends. This was my way of surviving a very difficult childhood - always to be busy creating my own alternatives.

Were there people in your early years that you admired or may have given you a lift into what you are doing now?

I looked up to my school teachers, especially Mrs Buxton who encouraged my painting and story writing.

What are some of the things that keep you inspired as a working artist?

I am always inspired by the experience of art - that is visiting great public galleries and wandering about in the complex narrative of art history - taking time to look carefully at just a few artworks. It's the physical experience of visiting the gallery, the being a visitor, that enthralls me. I don't get to visit galleries very often so for me it is a special experience and perhaps if I were working in central London and wandered in every day the thrill of it would have less impact? I tend not to look too much at contemporary work online, though I do look. I am inspired too by craft, folk crafts and domestic crafts - many hands-on skills. I do a lot of knitting though I am a fairly poor knitter. My hands need to be busy always. The season shifts, light and shade of this English climate also inspire me. Literature and story telling is important to me, though I am sporadic reader these days.

Do your ideas develop in the midst of your process or do you come to the drawing table with a good idea you're are going after?

I rarely have a fully-planned idea. Most of my work is quite improvised. If I plan or have too much of an idea ahead of the process, it is often doomed. This is why I do not undertake commissions. People do ask me to make specific images, for example: 'can you make an embroidery with a woman in red holding a child and a figure here and etc...' And I really cannot do that. When I sit to stitch especially, I have to let go of my controlling mind and work on automatic. If I think too much about it then the result is disappointing.

What would you say is at the core of your content as a visual artist?

An overwhelming desire to create my own small and many worlds.

What other contemporary artists working today are you looking to?

I admire the work of very different artists who all have their own strengths as individual narrators, especially Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread, Nathalie Lete, Gary Wragg, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gillian Ayres and others.

What do you hope that your creations will do for the people that live with them?

I hope they provoke a dialogue of thought, story and intrigue. It is interesting to me that people will write and say they look at a piece often and see something new, or will consider a face within as a certain person in their lives, for example. This kind of ongoing relationship with the artwork is all I could ever ask for.